Imagninations in Maps

One quote particularly struck me in Padron’s article “Mapping Imaginary Worlds”. On p. 284 he states:

“…all maps are, in some sense, maps of imaginary worlds in that all of them involve a process of selection, representation, and conceptualization that inevitably falsifies the territory they represent, even as they communicate valuable information about that territory. In this way, the production of a map introduces the values and the prejudices, the perceptions and the misconceptions, the insights and the blind spots, the ideology and the culture, of the mapmaker into the representation of the territory.”

In the vein of Harley, this seems to throw all bets out the window. If this is true, then I feel like we’re right back where we started in the beginning of the semester at the discourse of whether maps can be trusted or not. But, as seen in Padron and You Are Here, not all maps are trying to be ‘definitive’. Interpretation and imagination does not automatically lead to illegitimacy or a somehow lesser usability for historians. I think it mostly depends on what types of historical questions you ask.

But getting back to this quote, it got me thinking about my project. My last post showed a project that manipulated the London metro map to better represent actual space, time, and distance. If Padron is on the right track, transportation maps shouldn’t be taken as definitive and literal. I was thinking about the DC metro map and how much it schews distance and time. Metro Center and Gallery-Place are really close to each other, but Dunn-Loring and Vienna are not, but on the map, how could you know this?

I am toying with the idea of mapping my commute from my different DC neighborhoods vs. my San Antonio commute to college by re-representing the DC Metro map or a Google map. Illustrator? Ortelius? Any suggestions of how I could go about this?

Also, Dan’s post reminded me of this track, and I cannot stop humming it as I do my blogging.

Metro Maps and Spatial Understanding (or lack thereof)

As I stated in our project update, I’m thinking about analyzing how transportation and commuting influence our  spatial worldview. A lot of this will come out of juxtaposing my existence in San Antonio vs. DC. In other words, how is life different via a car or public transportation/on foot? How has this been shaped by historical transportation development?

I came across this neat gem while working on something for Clio I. It’s a dynamic visualization of the London Underground that changes based on travel time from the selected station. I was thinking about mapping my commute and someone re-interpreting the DC metro map to better represent what I actually experience time and space wise.

Just an idea to get some feedback on.

Transportation From the Car to The Bike

So far, it seems most of us have taken interest in what Akerman has to say about Americans and their precious automobiles. For me, this is more to what I actually want to explore in my atlas project.

Akerman traces the antecedents of American auto-culture. In some of my outside research, I’ve found a lot of efforts in the late 90′s and early ’00s to increase pedestrian consciousness and a sort of backlash from the automobile. Books with titles like Driving Forces : the Automobile, its Enemies, and the Politics of Mobility popped up in my keyword searches on GMU’s catalog. Aside from the hilarious pun in the title, works like these attempt to explore how the car has both shaped America on its own and how it was used as a tool by political and commercial interests to shape the landscape.

Out of which, cars take on a very negative reputation. While it may seem quintessentially ‘American’, I don’t know if this is necessarily true. Historically, cars dominate how we . Is this declining?

The bicycle I think provides an opportunity now to examine changing relationships with transportation and distance. One think I have noticed on my own is a sort of ‘industry of cool’ that developed around bikes. It’s a very cool-kid phenomenon. I can’t tell you how many fixed geared and single speed bikes with flashy colors I see parked outside the coffee shop down the block from my house. Services like Map My Ride and social networking sites attempt to market the bike as “a viable, healthy, and sustainable transportation choice.”

Pedal Room has a way of viewing their members by map, which I found interesting:

For some reason it didn’t show up here, but big colored spots indicate where members are located worldwide. It seems the Internet has even taken something as local as a bicycle and made it international.

So, can  seemingly ‘noble’ choices like biking shape or influence your spatial world free of consumerism? Is it really that consumerism is quintessentially American, and automobiles just fit the bill?

Talk amongst yourselves…

Comments

So far this week, I’ve commented on Kevin’s take of the Akerman article, and Dan’s views on American relationships to maps, and Lindsey’s post treating us to a very catchy song from my youth.

Rubber Sheeting-DC vs. SA

I was wondering how I could use the elevation features of Natural Scene Designer in my final project. I don’t know how much of an impact it will have, but I wanted to just play around with it. I found a lot of literature this past week about US transportation history, especially in DC (because, well that’s where legislation is made). I’ve found a lot of arguments for pedestrian/against the automobilization of the nation. So, I thought I would stay in the vein of personal geography and just focus in on my neighborhoods in both San Antonio, TX and the two I’ve lived in so far in DC. How can I illustrate my existence in these neighborhoods?

Here is the area of SA I lived in. No overlay. Below, has a basic overlay with the major roads. That main artery on the right is Highway 281, the main route I would take into town for college, shows, hang out with friends, and visit the downtown attractions (i.e.-The Alamo…not really though).

I used Alex’s tip on the ‘Vertical Exaggeration’ to make it seem a bit more impact. SA (at least this area) is a bit flat.

Here is my neighborhood just at Loop 1604, a Beltway-size (it might actually be a bit bigger) loop that goes around the entire city. I lived right at that crossroads at the bottom.

And then I moved to DC. Here is the first neighborhood I lived in near Eastern Market. I lived right at Lincoln Park, just on 13th St SE (the right side of the park). The main difference here is the pedestrian vs. automobile existence. I never drove in DC, but was forced to on the other hand in SA. My roommate did have a car here, so we would drive to Harris Teeter, etc. But, she always drove haha. Let’s look at some other angles:

You’ll notice I was basically sandwiched between the Captiol and RFK Stadium. I was about a 15 minute walk to the Capitol, and could walk to work at the Newseum. To the east, I would see people walking to RFK events, parking way down by my area and enjoying the neighborhood as they walked down E Capitol St SE.

Here is a view from the Captiol-side:

I moved to a neighborhood called Bloomingdale this past September. Here you can see the old area just east of the new, right up to N Captiol St NW.

I’m right on R St NW, just north of Florida Ave. NW.

Here are some easterly and westward views:

I found this useful less for its elevation aspects and more for allowing me to orient where I have existed in each city. Moving the camera around allowed me to view the DC neighborhoods in relation to one another. I think this might help me out in the final project by showing spatial differences between DC and SA. I might be able to map my commute and show my proximity to landmarks, metro stations, work, etc. I tried downloading some transportation files on the USGS site but they simply would not work with NSD (it kept shutting down the program). Any tips? They downloaded as .shp files? Where else could I get some useful transportation/road map overlays?

I want to use this more to analyze how you could get around each city both historically and now. I’ve noticed a marked class difference between the two DC neighborhoods. Living so close to the Captiol, it was an entirely different demographic. How does class play into transportation? How does reliance on cars affect how and where you go in each city? These are some questions I’m toying with. Any other suggestions or ideas of how else I could approach this?

Comments

Here are my comments for this week. I really like Alex’s use of the ‘Vertical Exaggeration Factor’ which I was able to use for my project. I thought Lindsey’s investigation of class and elevation was very insightful. Ruel’s blog brought up some interesting comments about digital mapping methods and how they will impact future research. Cara’s post showed how changing the scenery settings can make the map have more impact.

DCRA to Post DC Maps

My friend alerted me to this dcist article about how the DCRA is going to post a lot of high resolution maps of DC in the coming weeksn and months. Looks like it could be useful to this course.

Check out the article here.

Comments

So far this week, I have commented with Alex about the affect of maps on our sense of community, Daniel’s about his views of Bruckner, and Alisa’s about geographic education.

Maps in Material Culture and Language

The Bruckner readings offered two viewpoints to examine maps which we haven’t really come across yet, material culture and language.

I found the article interesting; I took a course in undergrad about the evolution of American material culture, and we started in the colonial era. I appreciated his support of this periodization of consumer culture. Here, maps play an active role not just in political discourse but in everyday consumerism.

His book, while a bit dense, presented geography in a different light. His examination of geographic education and literacy led to a “quasi-linguistic code” (p. 7). Thus, his hypothesis of a new vernacular to describe one’s existence caught my eye. As I mentioned in class, I am interested in exploring spatial understandings for my atlas project. How can geographic literacy dictate how one views their world and their place in it?

He seemed to have a bone to pick with American imperialism and expansion, which sometimes made the book a bit preachy. However, I valued his introduction of the notion that these ideas stem from a need for community and identity and what that community demands (in this case, expansion).

But it seems to break down into semantics. He brings into the fold Wittgenstein’s idea of “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world” (p. 12). This has been in the back of my mind for a while now. The article Dr. Petrik posted at the beginning of the semester stuck with me. I am interested in maybe using language and language theory to examine personal geography. I am about to break open Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space. Wish me luck, and more on that later.

Here is a song I was reminded of when talking about language. While not the best Fugazi song, the line “language keeps me locked and repeating” were in my head while doing the readings. Is this so? What do others think?

“America is just a word but I use it”. Can maps boil down nations, concepts, and ideas so grandiose as America into a singular word?

 

Blog Comments

Here are my comments for Lindsey’s, Alex’s, and Alisa’s blogs:

http://mbestebr.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/79/#comment-16

http://armablue.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/searching-for-tauxenent/#comment-12

http://alesanu.wordpress.com/2010/10/06/drawings-digital/#comment-81